Dogs didn’t just get the nickname man’s best friend for nothing. According to a study by Current Biology, dogs can recognize emotions through the voice. The study by dog and wolf behaviorists Ádám Miklósi and Márta Gácsi, reveals that humans and dogs are more agreeable to sounds that evoke a positive emotion. That’s just one more reason for us all to try to be a little more positive.
Setting Up The Study
This study uses humane, friendly, and non-aggressive techniques.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) allows one to see images of the internal organs of the body. This study used functional MRI (fMRI), which helps observers identify which parts of the brain respond to stimuli.
Dogs receive training to lie still while wearing headphones. The dogs are awake during the process.
The study involves 11 dogs and 22 humans. With headphones, both groups listen to the same series of sounds. The sounds fall into one of three categories.
The first category includes sounds a human or a dog produces. The vocalizations the subjects hear vary in emotional intensity. Both the dog and human subjects listen to crying or laughter of a human, crying of dogs and different tones of barks from dogs.
The second category uses sounds from the natural environment, and the third no sound at all.
The Results
You may be wondering, how do dogs respond to human vocals? How do humans react to a dog’s vocals?
The auditory cortex processes sound in both species. The fMRI observes the auditory cortex in both humans and dogs and finds both respond the same to sounds with positive or negative emotion. Researchers conclude this is due to their brains’ similarities as mammals.
The study also reveals disparities, as different parts of the brain react to sound stimuli.
For example, areas of dogs’ brains are far more sensitive to sounds from the natural environment than those of humans. Vocalizations from humans have a significant effect on the human brain. There is less of an effect on the human brain by the vocalizations of dogs.
The study also finds that while it is more common for dogs and humans to respond to the voices of their species, both dogs and humans are sensitive to sounds evoking positive emotion.
Researchers are optimistic about the potential in these findings. Indeed, it may be possible for yet other species to recognize and process voices from another.
Rest assured that dogs aren’t just smarter than we think. They’ve probably got a good grasp on what it is we’re saying to them too.
Source: theconversation.com